Are Jose Guillen and Mike Jacobs being overpaid or misused?
by RoyalPug on Jun 6, 2009 4:54 PM EDT
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One of the biggest points of concern for the Royals is maximizing the return on their investments. As a small market team every dollar spent is a dollar that needs to be used correctly for this team to have success. So obviously Jose Guillen and Mike Jacobs present a huge discrepancy to this idea. But are the two sluggers being over paid or simply misused?
As has been mentioned before the best possible combination of these two players(due to atrocious defense and some major platoon splits) would be for the two to platoon the DH role with Mike hitting against righties and Jose hitting against lefties (Note: JoGui actually hits better against righties than lefties, but 100 points less than Mike, and while he isnt great against lefties hes far better than Mike)
But are they overpaid for what they should be doing? Lets see.
Here are the numbers for this arangement: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=r8P4YmO8CFA1pGHRgHuh4yQ
( I could not for the life of me figure out how to just insert that)
We can quickly see that Jacobs, although an abominable defender and saddled with the positional detriments of the DH is quite worth his money...against right handers. Against Lefties hes so bad that it drags him back down to replacement level.
Jose on the other hand is just bad. Against righties, hes not terrible and is worth about one WAR, but atrocious defense and poor hitting against lefties destroys him.
So the answer is yes they as a tandem are being overpaid without a doubt.
But it would seem that if GMDM could bring in someone who could mash lefties just as well as Jacobs hits righties for a similar price(4 million) and platoon them at DH, then you would have a pair that could stack up against most any other DH in the league.
As a side note I also tried Olivo's numbers in the calculations at first, since his OPS is 50 points higher than JoGuis against Lefties. Thing is Jogui walks enough(first time you've ever read that) that he balances out the extra couple of singles and XB hits that Olivo gets. So in terms of wOBA Olivo actually clocks in about .010 points lower than JoGui.
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Hard questions. Are fish scaly or aquatic? Are hives itchy or unsightly? I always have trouble with these.
by 2X2L on Jun 6, 2009 5:27 PM EDT reply actions 2 recs
My vote is both.
They re overpaid and misused. Jo Gui is just terrible on defense and im beginning to think/know that his offense hasnt been good enough to overcome his wheelchair special olympics defense. Mike Jacobs is terrible on d as well, terrible against lefties, and wonderful against righties. When a lefty is throwing i would be just fine with benching Jacobs and maybe giving B Pena a shot at dh in the bottom third of the lineup when he is not behind the plate. Olivo brings nothing but frustration on both sides but occasionally hits for power but his approach at the plate would never be worthy of playing him at dh. My two cents whatever its worth.
Jacobs hits better lower in the order at 6th
His OBP is over .400 hitting 6th and is batting exactly .133 in the 4th and 5th slots!
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/7623/situational;ylt=ArB26WTO7GdoNwjdbwrDjCFCLcF
So you can therefore argue that Jacobs is misused and Guillen should be DHing so he is also misused.
Atleast Guillen has a respectable OBP this year.
Whatever they both suck, and I wish we had Ram Ram and Nunez back and we could tell Jacobs & Coco to go take a hike and call up Kila.
Yeah, the whole situation is fucked
I'll bite
Most of you know, and disagree with my stance that I don’t really give a shit how much players make. Yes, I understand that contracts like Guillens/Sweeney’s, etc hinder our ability to sign other FA’s, but I do NOT Think that it eliminates the possibility. Some reports have KC getting over $100MILLION in revenue sharing for the ‘09 season, yet we ’only’ have a $70something million payroll.
IMO, GMDM took a bit of a risk on and knowingly overpaid for to get some modicum of ‘pop’ in the middle of the lineup. The plan was to have a veteran hitter like Guillen in the lineup as protection for Gordon/Butler/Teahen.
Lets look back at that ‘07-’08 FA class of Corner OF types
Milton Bradley – He was coming off an injury plagued ’07 in which he played in just 61 games. He also basically voided a trade to KC the previous season by going on the DL (again) with a leg injury.
Emil Brown – Could have been a one year option for cheap, but the lack of acquiring a player from outside the organization would have been a PR hit.
Mike Cameron – 3 years older than Guillen, not sure if he was ever targeted by KC or not, but he has definitely produced greater than him.
Geoff Jenkins – I’d think he wasn’t looked at since he hits left handed and we were LH heavy already.
Cliff Floyd – Makes Jose Guillen look like a gold glover and hits LH
Brad Wilkerson – See Jenkins, Geoff
When you take the $$ out of the equation, Jose Guillen has been the 3rd best of the bunch behind Milton & Cameron. Bradley was never really an option I don’t think, so GMDM could have possibly got Mike Cameron that would have been an upgrade.
Some will say that he should have just stuck the $$ in a jar on the mantle and waited until the next offseason. I can’t argue the logic behind that argument, but you have to remember that the Royals are still in the business of trying to sell tickets. Making no move, or a move to get a cheap Minor League FA, Emil Brown type of corner OF’er surely wouldn’t have sold any tickets for KC.
I don’t share the hatred of Mike Jacobs that the majority on this board have. I think there is something to be said for a guy that is a good clubhouse guy that does bring the bility to change a game with one swing of the bat (vs a Righty).
What has thrown a wrench into everything has been Jacobs lack of development with the glove (not that he was expected to develop) coincided with Butler’s development into a competent 1B, coincided with a complete lack of OF depth on the roster due to us having 6 or 7 punch & Judy Middle IF types on the roster seemingly at a time.
I think the best case going forward this season will be to move Teahen back to RF when AG is healthy. I’d put him in there 5-6 games a week, and I’d give Jose the occasional start to appease him. DH Guillen against all lefty’s, and about 25-40% of RH started games. DH Jacobs in games started by RH the remaining 60-75% of the time.
This would give you a potentially ‘game changing’ bat off the bench for PH situations in every game in either Jacobs, Teahen or Guillen, while also putting your best defensive team on the field.
BOOM! ROASTED!
I forgot to mention
I don’t read too much into Jose’s lack of production vs LH to this point in the season.
Over his almost 6000 career PA’s, he’s hit for a better avg vs. LH than RH, a .40+ better slg and a .60 better OPS.
That, if anything, tells me he’s due to hit the shit out of lefty’s for a stretch this season.
BOOM! ROASTED!
Mike Cameron would have been a helluva deal
2008 WAR: 4.0
2009 WAR: 2.7
And he is a plus defender. Signing Cameron would have meant no move for Crisp, as he would likely play CF better than DeJesus. And therefore, we still have RamRam. It would have made our whole team better. The worst part is, that Cameron probably could have been had for about $4M less per season than Guillen. Assuming $2M per season is enough to get him to play in CowTown. Cameron hit 25 homers in 2008 while batting .243 w/ OBP of .331.
What really boggles my mind is how GMDM came up with 3/36 for Guillen. It gets worse every time I look at it.
Yea, but Cameron was a PED using cheater
Unlike Jose Guillen!
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
I agree with you i principle
I only care about salaries insomuchas it effects future moves
however, with this team, I think there is a clear payroll limitation, and the contracts, especially guillen’s, also effectively kill the ability to trade them
Yea
But it is pretty much known that teams that are in a rebuilding mode either have to stand pat (Pirates) or they take risks and over pay for guys (’05 Tigers w/ Pudge and others).
Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t, but I’d rather be a team taking a risk as opposed to the Pirates.
BOOM! ROASTED!
To paraphrase WOPR from the movie "War Games"
“It seems the best option is….not to play.”
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
Hope Both Get
Hot and dump them at the deadline for whatever’s out there. Bring up Kila and hope Aviles’s problem was an injury. Maybe flip Coco, too. Maybe we could get lucky with some relievers.
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
I think we should give up one - and yeah whoever can yield a decent prospect (not Pablo Orlando or whoeverfuck that is)
Kila is a better player than both of them. Teahen can play 3b, 2b, 1b, and Rf so we are covered. Not sure Alex shoudl automatically replace Teahen at 3b, because Teahen has been one of our best players.
I would love to get rid of Coco.
Man Jacobs, Guillen and Coco are not good players. Sorry
by GobbleforCyoung on Jun 6, 2009 7:48 PM EDT up reply actions
not even Dayton Moore would be dumb enough to give up a decent prospect for either of these guys
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by Matt Klaassen on Jun 8, 2009 11:31 AM EDT up reply actions
This is a question for the ages.
Can you know the mighty ocean? Can you lasso a star from the sky? Can you say to a rainbow… ‘Hey, stop being a rainbow for a second’? No! Such is Mango!
Can you ask Jacobs to stop the summer breeze? Can you ask Guillen to run like a sprinter? Can you ask Jacobs to find the third outcome for his 2 true outcomes swing? No! Such are the swirling vortices of suckitude known as Jose and Mike!
by AxDxMx on Jun 6, 2009 7:53 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Jacobs can only bat 6th
his OPS is over 1 for god’s sake in that spot. Can Kila play RF?
Bloomquist it a triple from the 2-hole today
that scored 3 runs, so he can only hit 2nd the rest of the year.
BOOM! ROASTED!
i don't want to see Callaspo hitting 2nd again
Dejesus
Bloomquist
Butler
Teahen
Guillen
Jacobs
Callaspo
Pena
Coco
by GobbleforCyoung on Jun 6, 2009 8:15 PM EDT up reply actions
Wow
I didn’t think I needed to use the sarcasm font on that, but I guess I was mistaken
BOOM! ROASTED!
If you are going to be sarcastic on a point I make about Jacobs having better numbers batting 6th, try not to look like an absolute fool in the process
G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB K SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS
Batting 4th 12 46 5 6 1 0 1 3 3 15 0 0 .130 .200 .217 .417
Batting 5th 14 46 4 6 1 0 2 2 5 18 0 0 .130 .231 .283 .513
Batting 6th 21 72 11 24 5 0 7 19 9 21 0 0 .333 .407 .694 1.102
these #s are not important
look how small the AB totals are
we might as well go all elias style and see how well he hits on tuesdays
Always seems like he struggles against pitchers with facial hair, too.
If you were thinking, you wouldn't have thought that.
Fool huh?
You have 1 small piece of information there, which is in NO WAY enough to base anything off of.
Was he hitting in front of or behind the same batter in each spot (something of FAR more significance than the number in the order)?
What is the ratio of AB’s from each spot vs LH or RH pitchers?
There are a dozen other questions that can be asked here that are more important that the # in the order.
BOOM! ROASTED!
Okay lets not overanalyze this
When your OBP is .401 in a certain slot and .231 in another slot and the difference is THAT significant over ONE THIRD of the season its not just coincidence….especially considering that its prevalent throughout baseball the increased difficulty hitting in the 3,4,5 slots
by GobbleforCyoung on Jun 6, 2009 8:53 PM EDT up reply actions
lol
I’m not doing this
BOOM! ROASTED!
by GoBabies!! on Jun 6, 2009 10:41 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
It's not 1/3 of the season
It’s 46 ABs, 46 ABs, 71 ABs. That’s about 12 games, 12 games, and 18 games worth of ABs. No where near 1/3 of the season, total those are about 1/4 of the season, but if taken as separate events, you need enough individual trials for each spot, and none of those are statistically significant. In fact, order shouldn’t matter. Is Jacobs going to be a better hitter at 5:15 pm or 5:30 pm? Trick question, he should be the same hitter. So why should it make a difference in what order he bats? The only valid reasoning is a psychological issue, and I don’t buy that. It’s random noise that you are trying to organize into coherent points. I was going to post something about this earlier, but I thought you were joking.
And as to your increased difficulty of hitting in the 3,4,5 spots being prevalent throughout baseball, well check out the splits for the AL this year at Baseball Reference:
The 3 and 4 spots all have a higher OBP than any other spot in the lineup, then comes #1 and then #5. 3,4, and 5 all have higher slugging percentages than any other spot in the lineup (small note, the 5 and 6 batters are almost identical, but #6 does have a slight .005 edge in SLG over #5).
Of course, if you put Mitch Maier in at the cleanup spot, he’s not going to produce those numbers. So yeah, that might be pretty difficult for him. But otherwise, you are making no sense.
I do agree with the potential 'psycological' argument
to a point. Which is why I brought up “Was he hitting in front of or behind the same batter in each spot (something of FAR more significance than the number in the order)?”…
I think there is a certain comfort level that is achieved by having a consistent lineup in that you always know how far you are away from your time up. If George Brett looked up & saw Willie Wilson hitting he KNEW where the lineup was immediately, without thinking of it. If Mike Jacobs looks up & sees Alberto Callaspo, Willie, or Teahen hitting, that person can be anywhere between the 2 hole & 8 hole depending on the cycle of the moon!
As for the actual # in the order having any significance whatsoever, I don’t buy it AT ALL. It is 100% determined by who is around you, and since, as I already pointed out, Jacobs batting 6th meant he has just as much of a likelihood of being surrounded by Willie/AC/Teahen as he did in the 3 hole bears out that it is a coincidental occurrence.
BOOM! ROASTED!
That was pretty much my point
I don’t care about the stats for the different hitters throughout baseball. I only care about Jacobs and his ability have an OBP almost twice as high in the 6th spot as in the 4th/5th spot. Is it a coincidence. Partly, yes. Is it less pressure in that he can concentrate on driving in runs and not getting on base, which results in him getting on base more? probably as well.
I don’t want to hear the sample size argument because its all relative. You mentioned 160 AB’s TOTAL. He’s never had a 480 AB’s in a season so if you knew how to multiply you would see that 160 Ab’s is a third of his season. You expect him to bat one whole year in the 3rd spot and then the following season bat in the 6th spot and then draw a conclusion? FOR YOU TO ARGUE THAT IT ISN’T ENOUGH OF A SAMPLE SIZE IS STUPID IMO!
I don’t care what it is, I don’t like Jacobs batting in the heart of the order. Whether its “coincidence”, “luck”, “psychological”, “pressure”, “factual”, or just a bad argument on my part, the numbers support so far.
by GobbleforCyoung on Jun 6, 2009 11:37 PM EDT up reply actions
You know, I don't think it's a coincidence either.
I just think Jacobs sucks ass.
If you were thinking, you wouldn't have thought that.
OK Trey Hillman! Settle down!
You’ve obviously never taken a statistics course. If you are claiming that batting in different spots is meaningful, then each of those things are separate events, you can’t lump them together and call it 160 ABs. What if Jacobs goes on a hot streak batting #4 and gets 10 hits in a row there? All of the sudden, he’s better at #4?
Here’s something funny. If you want to use that logic, Jacobs belong at #7 or #2 according to his career splits.
What’s more than likely happening is that Jacobs is very streaky and gets hot batting at #6, so Trey moves him up to #4 and he cools back off. He stays there and sucks for a while, and then Trey moves him back down to #6 where he gots hot again. Repeat cycle.
Also, I’m not arguing for Jacobs batting at #4. I think he should be in the 6 or 7 spot every day because he is a strikeout machine. I just don’t buy your logic.
I didn't have to
I was only an econ major at college. But my advisor got a PHD in economics at Oxford and told me, “Statistics are a bunch of bullshit, you can tweak them to prove anything,” to paraphrase
by GobbleforCyoung on Jun 7, 2009 1:27 PM EDT up reply actions
Econ without statistics is like learning music without being able to play an instrument or sing a song
Theory’s good, but it only takes you so far. Especially when numbers run against theory.
If you want to talk college, I majored in Math, Economics, and Computer Science, with a minor in Spanish.
I mean, you say you minored in Econ, and you’ve never heard “Correlation is not causation”? Even though his good results are highly correlated with batting in the 6 hole, that doesn’t mean the 6 hole causes it.
by AxDxMx on Jun 7, 2009 5:26 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
yeah sure
but It doesn’t answer the question of what the cause is. He was just hot? maybe. The players hitting before and after him in the order affected his production? who knows
Those career splits you posted are interesting too. You told me his amount of AB’s wasn’t a big enough sample size. Well, he has a career OBP of .282 in the 4th slot. I think that’s sufficient. What is his shitty performance attributed to?
It’s clear he can never be more than a role player/complimentary piece and he needs 3 players clearly better than him hitting in the heart of the order. When he’s required to anchor a lineup by batting cleanup he fails.
Hillman put him in the 6th spot and maybe he will get “hot” again. Whatever “hot” is
by GobbleforCyoung on Jun 7, 2009 9:40 PM EDT up reply actions
I'm done banging my head against the wall
There is no cause! It’s just random noise that you separate by where he happened to be batting on a given day.
As a sidenote, I would consider his numbers in the 4 hole to be a lot closer to his “real” numbers because of the large number of ABs.
And yet, he sucks wherever he bats! I would bench his sorry ass and promote Kila.
Amen to that
I would love to see Kila right now. There is no question he would do better than Jacobs no matter where in the order he bats
by GobbleforCyoung on Jun 8, 2009 12:09 PM EDT up reply actions
But did you play 3B for South Florida?
If not, then shut the hell up because you have no idea what you’re talking about.
< / sarcasm >
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
Exactly!
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
by RoyalsRetro on Jun 8, 2009 1:58 PM EDT up reply actions 2 recs
it's a 3rd of a season for Jacobs
Maybe the 3,4,5 spots are cursed…Alex Gordon couldn’t hit for shit above 6th last year either
yeah well its worth mentioning
Why the fuck can’t we find ANYONE who can produce in the 4th and 5th slots of the lineup???
You have to admit that Billy Butler has stepped up hitting in the 3rd spot this year, that’s more than anyone on the team can say the last few years
by GobbleforCyoung on Jun 6, 2009 11:40 PM EDT up reply actions
Because our whole lineup is basically dog shit?
I love BamBam, but how many teams in MLB would hit him in the 3 hole?
5?
If you were thinking, you wouldn't have thought that.
Because compared to the rest of the league our 3,4,5 suck
You can’t plug Willie F’in Bloomquist in there and expect 40 homers because he is hitting in the 4 hole.
by AxDxMx on Jun 7, 2009 12:18 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I think that Zack Greinke should never be made a #1 Starter
since, you know, he has shown unbelievable success this season out of the 2 spot.
BOOM! ROASTED!
by GoBabies!! on Jun 7, 2009 2:14 PM EDT reply actions 3 recs
agreed. You forgot your sarcasm font
What happened last year when he was named the #1 starter after the All Star break??
I’ll remind you – he got shelled worse than he ever has since getting diagnosed.
by GobbleforCyoung on Jun 7, 2009 9:20 PM EDT up reply actions
You are a complete joke!
I give up. You exist to troll. No one can be this dense. I will not respond to you any more, as I now believe all your posts to be jokes. Go away.
No im not a joke, but I was making one. Come on, Greinke would be an ace on every team except Toronto/NYM
Relax, someone having a different opinion than your almighty self, shouldn’t get under your skin so much. This is what these boards are for. You come across as stubborn & close minded if you can’t atleast consider the opposing view and it’s merits (or lack thereof).
Go bang your head on the wall some more. Jacobs is 28, his entire career he has hit .60 OBP points less in the 4th spots than the 6th. I thought you were put forth and better argument than, “chuck it up to being random.”
Greinke was declared the ace of the staff after the All Star break and was annihalated worse than any start in his past 40. HIllman didn’t annoint him this year as the #1, even though he is still our defacto ace. Greinke is young and only 25. He looks up to Meche and has publically stated how much he has helped him the past couple of years. I think comfort is really important to Zack, and he’s probably more comfortable letting Meche start the year off as the #1.
by GobbleforCyoung on Jun 8, 2009 12:19 PM EDT up reply actions
"Complete joke" may be true,
but “go away” is not super fair. Loopy people should be welcome here, too.
I actually sympathize a fair bit with GforCy. 160 PAs aren’t chopped liver. The famous “”http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/when-samples-become-reliable/“>when do stats stabilize” numbers are:
50 PA: Swing %
100 PA: Contact Rate
150 PA: Strikeout Rate, Line Drive Rate, Pitches/PA
200 PA: Walk Rate, Groundball Rate, GB/FB
250 PA: Flyball Rate
300 PA: Home Run Rate, HR/FB
500 PA: OBP, SLG, OPS, 1B Rate, Popup Rate
550 PA: ISO
By “stabilize,” they mean the split-half correlation is about 0.7. Let’s presume we want to stick with OPS, etc., as our quantities of interest. 70 << 500, so there’s likely to be a correlation of << 0.7: maybe 0.1…who knows. But the huge difference between the OPS of the different slots (1100 >> 450) does in fact raise the correlation value as a matter of logic (I think), maybe as a guess from .1 to .2.
So it’s not peanuts. And as for the psychology of 4/5/6 spots not mattering…this is the age of anxiety. We know a lot more about Greinke, Khalil Greene, and others who are clearly a bit fragile upstairs. I imagine a lot of players have minor versions of those sorts of issues. I don’t think it’s reasonable to a priori discount the different psychology of 4-spot vs 6-spot hitting.
I suspect Jacobs’ splits are very, very slightly meaningful, but I would reserve 80% of my judgment until the sample size gets bigger.
And, as a coda, slight meaningfulness of splits and stats
could be the difference between a medium-bad player and a medium-good player.
A little psychological edge might mean one extra hit a week, which as we know is the difference between Jason Larue and Barry Bonds.
There's A Difference?
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
by philofthenorth on Jun 8, 2009 1:38 PM EDT up reply actions
Thanks Sean
appreciate the support. ANYONE’S opinion has value unless you can empirically denounce his/her theories, which you can’t in this case. Greinke is an ace, I was joking. He struggled that one start against Chicago because his splits in Chicago have been atrocious throughout his career.
The only fact on here is Jacobs has absolutely sucked hitting cleanup. He hasn’t been good in the 6th slot, but he hasn’t completely sucked either. There has to be something to it more than just random variables….
Question – Coco has sucked as a leadoff hitter throughout his career. His OBP is what 30 points + worse in the leadoff than the two hole??? If there is a psycological component batting in a certain slot, I would think a player batting 1st would be affected the most. If Jacob’s career at-bats is too small a sample size is Coco’s large enough?
by GobbleforCyoung on Jun 8, 2009 2:22 PM EDT up reply actions
You are right, 160 PAs aren't chopped liver.
But that’s not what we are talking about. We’re talking about 72 ABs in the 6 hole. Compared to less in other spots. If you want to talk about a stabilization rate for OBP and SLG listed above, it looks like 500 PAs should be it. If you are just interested in HR, then 300 PAs. So is 72 close to 300 or 500? Not really.
On a sidenote, I just flipped a coin and got 7 out of 10 heads. I wonder how many I’ll flip next Monday. Probably the same.
If Jacobs continues to hit at this rate his career should be over by the time he has 500 AB's in 3 different slots
How much sense does it make to reconcile his stats over the course of several seasons and different teams?
by GobbleforCyoung on Jun 8, 2009 3:35 PM EDT up reply actions
Jacobs has a HR rate in the 6 hole of 1 every 17.3 ABs for his career
But this year he has a HR rate of 1 every 10.3. If he gets a season’s worth of ABs (we’ll go 480 for you), the HR rate he has this year gives him 47 dingers. His career rate gives him 28. Which rate do you think is real?
I would be very surprised if Jacobs hits 30 homeruns as a Royal
even if he got switched to the 6th whole starting tomorrow and stayed there all year.
The bottom line with this guy is i thought he just slumped a bit last year and took a step back. I really thought the guy could improve on his 2007 numbers and be an adequate power hitter – I guess that’s what Dayton Moron thought too.
We were both wrong
by GobbleforCyoung on Jun 8, 2009 7:43 PM EDT up reply actions
Me too.
Which is why I thought you were arguing he could be Babe Ruth in the 6 spot with his 1.100 OPS this year simply because of what he’s already done there. It would be awesome if he keeps that up, but it just won’t happen. Especially if a lot of those ABs come against lefties. Anyways, I was probably a bit harsh earlier, but you seemed to be dismissing any discussion with some of your responses.
I guess what I was trying to say boils down to this, if you believe that Mike’s career numbers of .259/.318/.494 are accurate, then he is overachieving in the 6 hole.
Most likely he is overachieving
If you want to argue he doesn’t have enough statistical data to prove there is a legitimate factor why he’s hitting better in the 6th spot that’s fine. I just think there is probably a reason for it. I think now is the time to find out and hopefully his random luck or the maximizing of his skills continues in the 6th hole.
Yeah, thanks, I think you read me wrong. You are probably right about him just being hot in the 6th hole. Because I think overall he sucks too. But I would also further add that there is probably something we cannot really measure, nor understand, rather than just coincidence, which makes him a better player in that slot.
I wonder what he would say. Or if he even considers it. Because the gap for him is pretty sizable (6% higher OBP)
by GobbleforCyoung on Jun 9, 2009 8:53 AM EDT up reply actions
what about the other potential side to this argument?
Pitchers throw harder and tougher at the 3 spot, and potential 4 spot in the lineups. Pitchers face batters 6-9 and don’t “try” quite as hard as the 1-4.
What about the variation of the SPs vs the particular position in the lineup? I really don’t know, I am asking this.
by MarioVanPeebles Republic of China on Jun 8, 2009 3:12 PM EDT reply actions
not sure - it seems to be discussed alot, not sure what facts out there exist
And especially with Ortiz precipitous fall for stardom, you could definitely see what Manny leaving did to him…he’s isn’t seeing the same pitches he once was. However, what I just said has more to do with “the players hitting around you argument” then the exact batting order argument.
by GobbleforCyoung on Jun 9, 2009 8:56 AM EDT up reply actions
IMO
The only time in baseball you see pitchers ‘relax’ (and you see them relax CONSISTENTLY in this situation) is when they have 2 outs and nobody on base. I would LOVE to do a study to see what % of walks in baseball come in that situation.
On our staff, the three starters that are most guilty of this (without researching, I’m just going off of what I’ve noticed by watching the games this season) are Davies, Hochevar & Meche. Hochevar’s last start before being sent down was somewhat derailed early by this very thing. In that Cardinals start, he had 2 quick outs, then a walk, then the Cards scored.
The only other position in the order that I think you see a marked change in a pitchers approach is when they are pitching to the opposing pitcher. You can physically see a change in their approach in some instances, going to a much more laid back delivery that is often 3-5 MPH slower.
BOOM! ROASTED!
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